Donovan Schaefer

why is the 21st century so stupid

Right?? I wonder if they're twins

Tweet from David Miller: “Quite right, comrade! "Iran today is not just asserting its right to defend itself, or even its right to defend Palestine and sustain the resistance project as a whole, but the right of all states and peoples to control their territories and freely determine their destinies." Iran is in other words defending the rights and freedoms of humanity. It is the tip of the anti-imperialist spear. We must all stand with the Islamic Republic of Iran. #DismantleZionism”

No, the Iranian government is not in fact doing this; they are in fact mass murderers who slaughtered tens of thousands of their own citizens for peacefully protesting.

I promise you can oppose this illegal, unprovoked war without making the Iranian government into the good guys.

My favorite season:

Mourning dove nest or just some broken twigs in a weird place?

#birds #birdsky #nature #spring

Email address is "b225147borges@gmail.com," a knowing wink to the Borgesian labyrinth of scams we now all find ourselves trapped within

why is the 21st century so stupid

more accurate

Exciting collection from some brilliant scholars!

Key follows for today and going forward if you want to know what’s happening in Iran and the region: @hbanai.bsky.social @dassakaye.bsky.social @abuaardvark.bsky.social
@arashtehran.bsky.social @dahliasc.bsky.social @yjtorbati.bsky.social

The received pronunciation here is "I'm SVEE-ah from ac-a-de-MEE-ah"

Netanyahu Calls Iran Strikes Necessary To Prevent War He Just Started

From last year theonion.com/netanyahu-ca...

The received pronunciation here is "I'm SVEE-ah from ac-a-de-MEE-ah"

need to come up with your own rhyme, tho

Super unimpressed with the low quality of scammers we're getting these days

time traveler from 12 months from now just sent me this

Wanna read my feckin Death Certificate?

“Today ‘religion’—a flat word collapsing creed, liturgy, and spirituality into one compass—surges into the pores and pulsations of politics. And a new movement on the democratic left, if it emerges, will be organized across religious, class, gender, ethnic, and generational lines without trying to pretend that citizens can leave their faiths entirely behind them when they enter public life. It will take the shape of a complex assemblage, both mirroring and outstripping the evangelical-capitalist machine that it challenges, divides, and displaces. Its participants will bring a degree of self-modesty into their diverse faiths when they draw them into public life, forging an assemblage which combines care for equality, the earth, and the future in public presentations of interests, fears, hopes, principles, obligations, and responsibilities.”

Very sorry to hear of the passing of William Connolly. A true giant in political philosophy whose work spilled over into affect theory, religious studies, and secularism studies. I teach his work to grad students every year.

I love this passage from *Capitalism and Christianity, American Style*:

RFK Jr. is about to learn that the American people are not to be tripe filled with.

I think that tendency has shrunk; there's much more of a sense on the part of the secularist left that alliances can be formed across religious and non-religious lines. (Though you still see some vicious pockets of it.) In that sense, I'd say what Connolly was calling for has emerged.

I take Connolly to be responding to a tendency during the Bush years, on some parts of the left (esp white progressives), to cast religion or Christianity as such as the driving factor in conservatism--as an enemy that always had to be attacked and never allied with. See also: New Atheism. ->

Heartbreaking. Horrifying.

So good!

*Enemies of the Future: As part of the 2026 AAR theme of Future/s, explorations of Luddism, anti-tech, anti-AI, intentionally low-tech, and anti-modern religion (e.g., Anabaptism). *Techno-futures: As part of the AAR 2026 presidential theme of Future/s, considerations of the transformative role of technology in creating new material forms, new scientific horizons, and new religious iterations. Does the science/religion dynamic change as technology changes? *Funding Structures, Funding Collapse: Studies of the transformed landscape of funding for science in the second Trump presidency and its implications for religion as well as how science and religion funding have built the field. *Prediction and Uncertainty: Considerations of science and prediction, of unpredictability, divination, prophecy, the affects of certainty/uncertainty, despair and hope, optimism/pessimism, and speculation. *Revisiting When Prophecy Fails and Cognitive Dissonance: Considerations of new research emerging in the past decade challenging or reframing Festinger et al.’s influential 1956 book *When Prophecy Fails* and Festinger’s follow-up volume *Cognitive Dissonance.* *Genealogies of Science and Religion (for a possible cosponsored session between the Science, Technology, and Religion and Cultural History of the Study of Religion units): Where does science and religion—as a subfield—come from? What are the origin points, lineages, inflections, institutional politics, and material conditions of knowledge production that have led to the current field? Proposals may consider the Pitts Digital Collection repository of “American Academy of Religion Program Books” and/or explore the history of the STR unit (founded as “Theology and Science” in 1987) and related subdivisions of AAR/SBL. We welcome proposals from all scholarly ranks including graduate, contingent, and early-career scholars. AI-generated proposals will not be considered.

AAR/SBL folks: We're very excited about our CFP for the Science, Technology, and Religion unit this year! Have a look and consider submitting something by the March 6 deadline!

@aarweb.bsky.social @sblsite.bsky.social

Told my wife to play this at my funeral.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Visual Studies (One-Year Appointment) Haverford College Seeks a Visiting Assistant Professor of Visual Studies (One-Year Appointment).

1-year VAP in visual studies starting in fall, Haverford College.

Virtual book launch: Religion and Nonreligion in Same-Sex Marriage Debates: Emerging Imaginaries (edited by Juan Marco Vaggione, Paula Montero & Lori G. Beaman; De Gruyter, 2026). @nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Date: March 9, 2026
Time: 1:00 pm ET
Register here: uottawa-ca.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

okay, here it is, the five key takeaways from this by-election:

1. Denton Kebab House
2. The Crispy Cod, Denton
3. Reddish Tandoori, Gorton
4. Cottage Chippy, Gorton
5. The Continental Takeaway, Denton

Katie Britt never votes against Trump, but the press really wants to make this image happen.